Re: [office-metadata] RDFa model and xml:id

[Elias Torres <eliast@us.ibm.com>]

Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM wrote on 12/13/2006 10:00:08 PM:

>
> > Unfortunately, I can't say the same about your proposal because you
have
> > not explicitly stated on the mailing list or wiki.
> Correct. I have not the advantage to skip the design and take an
> implementation out of the hat.

I am pretty sure you fully understand that the above paragraph is a gross
mischaracterisation and directedly aimed as an offensive statement to how I
design and develop solutions and software in my everyday job. It isn't
clear to me why you are attempting to provoke meaningless discussion that
detracts from actual progress, but I would ask you to please stop doing so.
I'm not going to continue this conversation on the mailing lists until we
are ready to do some work or somebody help us moderate the level of the
discussion that's going on.

> That's why I wanted to discuss design aspects and not the whole coding
> first.
> But sure you are right two implementation are better to compare. Have
> you noticed my approach to discuss such a proposal with Patrick on the
list?

I have not noticed the approach. I apologize.

> > You have made mentioned
> > of xml:id, xpointer-based stuff, xpath stuff, styles-based stuff and
more
> > recently binding a la XForms stuff.
> A nice set, isn' it, but styles-based is the odd man. Never argued for
this.
> >  Which one is it? Please understand that
> > in order for us to compare things scientifically we need to see a
proposal
> > in an email or wiki addressing the use cases.
> >
> Do you design by comparing implementations or do you design by comparing
> design aspects by weighting scenarios?

I don't believe I'm proposing an implementation because that'd be me
suggesting C++ code or some other language implementation to parse RDFa
from ODF. I'm suggesting the design of RDFa/RDF to solve the problems on
the Wiki and would like to compare against something, but I still don't see
that. I'd like to have a matrix comparing how each proposal solves each
requirement and then we can choose. Finally, engineers will take the spec
and implement something. Is that correct?

> >> How can we compare the approaches in a more scientific manner?
> >>
> >>> * I'm actually more comfortable with using the style redirection that
> >>> Florian likes to indicate properties than the xml:id approach for
this
> >>> very reason (keep the package RDF files standard and clean). But that
> >>> would still involve a meta:property and/or meta:class attribute on
the
> >>> style definition, in which case it's effectively XML window dressing.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Do we all agree on the saying that good design is a modular design?
> >> If there are two parts like style and semantic, which sometimes might
go
> >> together - as when a content of a certain semantic is formatted by a
> >> certain style - but usually are handled separately, a modular design
> >> would not interleave them, but handle them separately to avoid
> >> unnecessary dependencies.
> >>
> >
> > I think you are stretching the analogy a tiny bit. You are saying that
> > because in general a modular design is well-received that it means that
> > content needs to be separated into two files. Is CSS a modular design?
Are
> > microformats a modular design? Are XML namespaces a modular design? Is
HTML
> > a modular design? Is RDFa a modular design? There I just pointed to
five
> > well known and (one not so well-known) standards that *are* considered
> > modular yet the content is on a single file.
> >
> >
>
> You should not level RDFa yet aside of CSS, miroformats, XML namespace,
> HTML.
> It is not a Standard, not a W3C Working Draft, no roadmap, by this not
> even on the way of becoming a standard.

You are right. Sorry for making a claim that RDFa was a standard. It's
definitely not. However, I'm not sure you are answering my question, you
simply are nitpicking on a label.

> Aside of this RDFa interleaves datatypes with the content, which is
> quite the opposite of being modular.

How does interleaving datatypes with content makes it NOT modular? Could
you show me an example? I think you are doing the same thing that you
claimed Bruce was doing by not showing you an example.

>
> By picking CSS, yes the reason for separating the CSS styles from the
> content - to be able to handle different things separately - should be
> the same reason for us to separate Styles and Semantic.

Are you missing the point that CSS can be embedded within the same file?
Are you forgetting that styles are stored as attributes in both @class and
@style within the content of the web page?

>
> How would you describe your way to decide if something is a good design
> or a bad design?

By testing its ability to address the requirements and use cases. Also by
testing how easy is to implement, understand and extend.

>
> Best regards,
> Svante